


Burden of a Soul

by Celticas



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Complient Injury, F/M, Guilt, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone. It was freezing mud and the slow creep of frostbite. It was men falling sick from rats or starvation. It was staring at an empty space on a bed where a leg should have been and irrationally hating his soulmate.
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 31
Kudos: 242





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [6/17/55](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028065) by [lazyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish). 



Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone. It was freezing mud and the slow creep of frostbite. It was men falling sick from rats or starvation. It was staring at an empty space on a bed where a leg should have been and irrationally hating his soulmate.

Daniel had swum back to consciousness in a freezing field hospital. Pain lacing through his leg. Barely able to gather the strength to push up onto his elbows and look down the length of his body. He saw everything he needed to in a second and allowed himself to drop back to the cold, damp canvas of his stretcher. It wasn’t just the loss of his leg he grieved through the slow process of being medi-vacced to the grey hills of wintery England. He grieved for the woman who was somewhere limping on ghostly pains. Red marks snaking down skin that should never have been marked.

He grieved for the hatred he imagined was growing in her mind for the man who had inflicted so much pain and disfigurement on her. To lessen his own guilt, he pushed through his rehabilitation faster than the doctors wanted. He wouldn’t inflict any more pain or imposition on her than he already had.

They wouldn’t let him keep fighting and a tiny, traitorous part of him was glad. Happy that he wouldn’t be the cause of any more pain for the woman waiting for him out there somewhere.

Years slipped by, the pain in his leg manageable by omnipresent. He hoped that it wasn’t creeping down the connection he couldn’t feel. All of his childhood injuries had been shrugged off, the price of life. But never had that price been exacted on him. In the dark of night, listening to the sounds of the city outside his window, he wondered about her. Every child, boy and girl, he had grown up with in Twin Falls had hurt themselves or been hurt. Marks flaring to life on their skin and then fading. A shadow of the marks on their soulmates. Daniel’s skin had always been clear. Only his own cuts and bruises marring his body.

Coming to New York he wondered about the pampered ladies of Manhatten. Was he destined for a city girl? A woman unused to hardship or work? Watching them sometimes he hoped not. He wouldn’t know what to do with a dame like that. And he wouldn’t know what they would do with him. Resentment for the imposition of having a lamed soulmate growing in his imagination. 

Then Peggy Carter swept into his life on a wave of colour and steel. She was the inescapable grip of the tide. There was a woman he could ask to have carried his burden. She had strength enough for both of them on the cold days when his leg ached even though he lost it years ago. But she just smiled guardedly at him and keeps going, blazing her own path even as he realises her heart is frozen. Lost in the Arctic with her soulmate. Encased in the ice that stole him from her.

His tally of wrongs he will never come back from grows. A black eye from Frank in New York and a glancing blow from a bullet that gouged a track through his skin in Los Angeles. He started to hope that the whispers of some people not having soulmates might be right. How could he ask anyone to carry the burden of his injuries. To carry for him, love him, when all he brought to her door was pain and injuries that weren’t her own.

The second time he was shot in the line of duty, still with no marks from her, he let it all go. The guilt, and the wondering. This was the life he had chosen and if there was a woman out there that was his perfect other half, she would accept it. She would have the strength to carry that burden. Otherwise, how could the fates ask her to be with him?

= + =

Hell wasn’t freezing mud and the slow creep of frostbite. It was the smell of dusty hay and the slow seep of blood between his fingers. He had spent so long asking himself how he could ask his soulmate to carry his burden. He had never stopped to ask if he could carry hers. 

She wasn’t the slow inescapable pull of the tide that Peggy had been. She was the raging storm. She was a towering thunderhead rolling across the plains, beautiful to look at from a distance but holding the power to rip your world apart. Intelligent sparked in her eyes and in the lighting fast wit of her tongue. 

Sitting on the rotten wood of a barn twenty years after he had died, feeling the sharp slice of the surgeon’s knife taking her apart. He was glad she hadn’t had to deal with his pain for so long, but that he could be there to help her with hers. He forced air into his lungs and out again, trying to will her to keep breathing, keep fighting as he watched them cut into her through a crack in the wall. She couldn’t die not knowing who she was meant to be to him.

He thought he might have fallen in love with her the second she smiled at him. As she lied and smirk knowing he knew it was a lie. He thought he might have fallen in love with her as she took genuine delight in showing him parts of her world. He knew he had fallen in love with her when she used the last of her strength to hold out her hand to him, even in the depths of her pain, giving him a way to free them both.


	2. Chapter 2

Mary Sue Poots threw the rock. She didn’t care. The nuns would scowl and tut and lock her in the punishment room. But she didn’t care. They would lecture her about how any hurt she did was two-fold bad, because it wasn’t just the person she was hurting but their soulmate too. She didn’t care.

If no one cared about her or her soulmate why should she care about theirs? Her bruises were her own and she knew where each and every one of them came from. If someone else was carrying them, that wasn’t her fault. And she didn’t care.

Everyone hurt her. Everyone was two-fold bad. And none of them got scowled at or tuted at or locked in the punishment room.

She didn’t care. 

= + =

Year in and year out, she wasn’t good enough. She was too much or not enough. Each time she was sent back to the nuns, and another year ticked past with only marks she could assign to a name and an infraction, a chip out of her belief in their being someone out there who was hers and hers alone was broken away. Left on the floor of countless foster homes.

She tried to harden her heart. Lose herself in the unfeeling lines of computer code. By the time she ran away from the orphanage at fifteen, she knew she was one of the unmarked. One of those rare, unfortunate few who was destined to be alone.

She didn’t care. Or that was what she told herself. No family. No soulmate. No one to tell her where to go or what to do. She didn’t care. She liked being alone.

They had cornered her in a dark, dead end alley. New York was a rabbits warren designed to catch the unwary. Left bruised and bloodied, parted from the little money she had and the shitty old laptop she had stolen from her second last foster home. It could have been worse, she comforted herself curled up in the back of her van in a pile of every blanket she owned, the doors locked and every light on. It could have been worse. It could have been worse and a soulmate would have known that shame. But it hadn’t happened and there wasn’t anyone to know she was hurting.

She didn’t care.

= + =

During down time, the other unmatched agents talked about feeling bad that their soulmate was hurt everytime they were. That somewhere, someone was feeling their pain. They talked about weighing that against the good they had done, and would do, in service to their country. To humanity itself.

Skye listened but stayed quiet every time it came up. They asked for her opinion and she shrugged it off, a flippant remark, or a quiet ‘I don’t know’ followed by leaving as quickly as she could. Guilt wasn’t something seh had to carry with her, just the loneliness.

And then she wasn’t alone. 

She had parents in May and Coulson, siblings in Fitz and Simmons, a person she could see herself spending the rest of her life with Lincoln. She had a name. A name that was her’s. With Miles and then Ward, she had known they had a soulmate waiting for them. That perfect person that wasn’t her. Lincoln didn’t have that. Not anymore. Samantha had died in a car accident years ago. Lincoln had grieved and told her he would never love someone as deeply as he had loved her, but he could love Daisy. He could love her and she could love him.

So she did.

She loved him.

Until he was taken from her. Until he chose to follow Samantha into death, then fight to stay with her. Until yet again Daisy was left behind.

= + =

Fate wanted her alone. Fate would happily take anyone she cared for. So she wouldn’t care. She would be with, but apart. Watch from the sides as her team were together.

= + =

Pain wracked through her body. The knife flaying her. Cutting and removing parts of her. Stealing. She screamed. Sound tearing itself from her throat. Blackness crashed over her in a welcome wave. Her final, flickering thought was happiness. Happiness that her pain was her own and no one else’s. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Last chance if you…” The doctor, Simmons he things, offered.

“I’m where I need to be.” He cut in, not taking his eyes off Daisy. Counting each rise and fall of her chest while trying to ignore the blood staining her clothes. He didn’t mean to be rude. As far as she knew he had intended to leave, stay in a time that wasn’t his own and where he would be alone.

He had thought he knew alone. But holding his soulmate, his perfect match, as her too hot blood had coated his fingers, he realised he had been wrong. He would gladly take every second of hurt she had ever felt, every second she had been alone, just to know she would take another breath.

And not because of some mystical moment of soulmate connection. But because this woman who fought even as her life was being drained away deserved everything. Because he was strong enough to carry it for them both.

The doctor ignored him, working away at her machines as another person cut into Johnson, Daisy he reminded himself. Gripping the fear and shifting pain with all of the strength he had, he stopped himself from shoving her away from the pod Daisy was lying unconscious in. He could feel the burn of the lights gliding across her skin. But it was the good pain of a medic at work. The sharp crack of a bone being set, or the stab and tug of stitches without anaesthetic.

She left. Throwing him one last look before leaving the medical bay with a sad shake of her head. Orders to come and get her when Daisy woke up echoed, ignored in his ears. For hours his mind turned things over. It wasn’t that he had been alone, she hadn’t been born to share the world with him. Or burdening his soulmate with his pain, she wasn’t alive to feel it.

Was he ready? Ready to share everything with another person? In a few days, he had died, travelled through time, lost the life he had fought so hard to build. His centre of gravity was still twirling out of control and throwing a soulmate from the future sent it spinning faster.

A gasp of fear and pain brought his thoughts to a crashing halt. Daisy was moving, her head jerking from side to side, hands reaching out and meeting the glass of the healing pod. He could  _ feel _ her panic. It scared him more than her fear did. Stealing his breath. Few pairings could feel more than each other’s pain, showed shadow injuries. But some. Some felt more. Some could feel an echo of other strong emotions.

He wasn’t ready for this.

Stepping away he tapped the intercom button and asked Simmons to come. For the first time in his life, he ran away from a fight and he hated himself for it.

= + =

She wasn’t alone. Even as fear and panic washed over her in alternating waves with pain stronger than she thought she could bear, she knew for the first time in her life she wasn’t alone. Just beyond the cold prison holding her, someone who cared was there. Waiting for her. Whoever it was didn’t want to hurt her. She didn’t know how she knew and in the confusion, and fear it was almost worse than if they had held violent intent. Then she could have grasped her powers and lashed out. Hurt them, like they wanted to hurt her. But they didn’t, so she couldn’t.

The ghost memory of fingers smoothing her hair off her face and a rumbling voice in her ear twined through and between the panic, breaking it into smaller pieces that she could bit by bit put back into its box. When she could focus on the world outside her prison, she saw Jemma smiling softly down at her, saying something that she couldn’t hear through the glass.

She held up a finger, wordlessly asking for a second. Turning her attention to the small screen attached to what Daisy now recognised as the healing pod, Jemma tapped a few times and the glass started moving with a pneumatic hiss.

“How are you feeling?” It was the first thing Jemma always asked when one of them was returning to consciousness. She had explained to Daisy once when she had still been Skye, that she did to see if their thoughts were in order, to double-check the machines, and give them back some control. 

Daisy narrowed her eyes at Jemma and then looked around as much as the room she could without turning her head. Jemma was here now, but she had been sure there was someone else there...Before...Someone who cared so much it was able to cut through the pain, but still laced with confusion and fear that fed her own.

“Daisy?” Jemma prompted her.

“Um,” She turned her attention inward, identifying how she was. “I hurt. Everywhere.” Her throat was rough, and torn. Voice weak from screaming.

“I can give you something for that.” Jemma offered, already knowing it wouldn’t be accepted.

“Who else is here?” Daisy asked for the information that she wanted, ignoring the question Jemm already knew the answer to.

The room was empty behind Jemma. 

“Agent Sousa…Oh, where has he gone?” True surprise coloured Jemma’s features. A rarity for any of their team in recent years. “He was here only a moment ago. Well, even so. I want you to stay in the pod for another few hours if you won’t take anything for the pain.” 

She waited for Daisy to lay back down after one last look around before closing the tube back up. Knocking twice on the glass in farewell, Jemma left.

= + =

“Agent Sousa. There you are!” The tiny doctor chased him down.

He was in enough of a spin to be resentful of the doctor, she didn’t need to run to catch him up. A fast walk would do. Thankfully, he kept the sneer inside his head. That wasn’t him. That was the confusion and the pain from Daisy and from his own leg. He didn’t want to hurt anyone’s’ feelings, especially not someone who obviously meant as much to his soulmate as Doctor Simmons and the rest of the team was. Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted a soulmate, or what he was going to do about it.

“Hello Doctor.” He turned to meet her, fighting to be polite.

“Hello Agent Sousa. Where did you disappear to?”

There wasn’t any judgement on her face, just curiosity and concern.

“Is your leg bothering you? Can I get you anything?” She had noticed the slight shake of leg.

“A little, but I will be fine.” Long experience had taught him not to lie to his doctors. It never went well.

Her sigh was of a long weariness with strong-headed agents unwilling to accept help. “Well, let me know if that changes. Daisy is awake if you wanted to see her.” Obviously expecting that he would jump to it.

He hummed non-committedly. He wasn’t ready to face her, but didn’t have anywhere else he conceivably needed to be instead. “I was going to get something to eat, maybe a cup of coffee.” He explained weakly. He had already showered and changed into a pair of pants and shirt made of a soft, grey material.

“Don’t let me stop you. But I think she would like someone to sit with her and I need to help Enoch with the ship.” The twinkle in her eye was knowing. Recognising a change in him, he was refusing to look at. She left before he could gather his thoughts enough to say anything. To argue that she wouldn’t want  _ him _ a virtual stranger sitting with her. To try and build a defense when she pointed out the irony or contradiction of him already having sat with her.

He stumbled his way to the small mess, the room he had been aiming for to begin with. That at least hadn’t been a lie. Automatically he assembled a sandwich. It tasted like ash in his mouth, if anyone had asked he wouldn’t have been able to tell them what was between the two pieces of bread. 

Rolling waves of pain and confusion fought to be held in iron control shivered through his body. The bond was so strong. Stronger than any he had heard of for a pairing that was still unacknowledged. The first step had been taken, he had touched her after recognising the bond. But she had not and no agreement had been reached. He shuddered to think of the strength of the bond that was still to come. An echo of his own feelings bounced back to him, a never ending call bouncing between the unforgiving walls of a desert canyon.

Delayed as long as he could, before he realised it he had drifted back into the medical room, staring at Daisy’s prone form from the doorway. She had fallen asleep again, her slumber easing the pain thrumming through their bodies. Around him the ship had settled into a sort of peacefulness. Most of the crew were out looking for their lost teammates, Simmons and Enoch were the only other ones still on board trying to fix what had broken.

Drifting across the room, he reclaimed his seat. Easing down with a relieved sign, his leg was aching more than he realised, his small hurt lost in the greater flood from Daisy. A spark of guilt lit deep in his gut. He should be doing everything he could to ease his pain so that he wasn’t adding to hers.

Next time Simmons came in to check on Daisy, he would take the offered meds.

= + =

She floated on a dull haze the next time she woke. The pain was still there but it wasn’t as bad. A spark of anger flared to life but died as quickly, there was something about the feeling that wasn’t right. She was safe, the medical room outside her little pod was easily recognisable, it was just the feeling that was wrong.

Looking around didn’t hurt as much, twinging rather then setting off a fire that raced through her nerve endings. A shadow was slumped against the wall in a dark corner. From the size, she knew it was a man, but he was too big to be Coulson or Deke and too small to be Mack. But who else was there?

Sousa.

The newcomer. A vague memory of Jemma telling her he had watched over her, and gotten her out of that hellhole first. She would have to remember to thank him next time she was awake she decided as she slipped back under the pull of the drugs she hadn’t wanted to take.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where this story is going, but I'm enojoying writing it.

She thanked him. She did. A murmured word before shuffling out of the room as soon as she could. Being indebted to someone was a weight she didn’t want. A responsibility to something beyond the team. Beyond her duty and the promises to Coulson she had made. A way to pay him back would reveal itself at some point, a fight she could save him from or an injury she could tend.

Didn’t mean she had to face him between now and whenever that opportunity presented itself. Beating a tactical retreat the second Jemma waved in her conviction in keeping her confined to medical, she locked the door of her cot behind her. Leaning against the cool plastic, she was finally free to breath. Unwatched. Unmonitored. Unseen to allow herself to break. The ghost memory of Malick’s knives scoring her skin.

Sliding down to sit on the floor, she let go. Hot tears rolled down her face, soaking the gauze wrapped thickening around her injured hand. The salt stung her wounds. The memory of Malick’s cruelty twined around the memory of Jiaying sucking the life out of her and the guilt-ridden releaf she had felt when Cal had ended her mother’s life. A new level of understanding for the pain that had driven her parents insane.

It felt like she cried for hours. Years worth of pain and loss flowing out of her. The rest of the team were lucky her powers were still low, the drugs and blood loss dampening them to the barest vibration shivering the door at her back. 

As she calmed down and her sense of the vibrations around her smoothed and broadened into a mental image of the world around her, an extra layer to her other senses that she had never fully discussed with anyone other than Lincoln who had had a similar ability, she felt the soft presence of someone else. The steady inhale and exhale that was just uneven enough that she knew they weren’t asleep. Just waiting.

“Thank you.” She said loud enough to carry through the door. She knew it was Sousa on the other side, there for her again. Her quiet stalwart.

“You’re welcome.” His voice floated back to her in sound and vibration.

She could feel the hesitation in the word, the quiver she couldn’t hear. The door opened silently at her lightest touch, the biometrics pulling the plastic into the hidden slot for it. 

He was sitting against the wall beside her door, injured leg sticking out in front of him, but the other cocked and an arm laying along it. He looked comfortable enough to happily sit there all night. Or day. She was losing track of when they were.

“Hey.”

“Hello.” He looked up at her, a soft smile on his face. “How are you feeling?” He made no move to get up.

Shifting uncomfortable, she didn’t answer straight away, shrugging instead. It was awkward having a conversation when he was still sitting there. “Would you like to come in?” She stepped out of the door. An underline to her invitation.

“Sure. Thank you.” He struggled to his feet, but Daisy knew better than to offer her help. Even if she was in the peak of health, he wouldn’t accept the offer. She had tried once and only once, her head being verbally bitten off drove the lesson home. He had apologised after, citing the rough time of being plucked from his timeline and the never ending stream of information and shocks had pushed him to the edge.

Her bunk was the only place to sit in the small space. For a millisecond, she debated what to do. “Please.” She waved him to the foot of the bed and settled at the head once he sat, pulling her pillow into her lap. A shield between them, something to fiddle with. 

“How are you feeling?” He asked again.

She shrugged again. It wasn’t dodging his question, she legitimately didn’t know how she was feeling. Drained. Numb. A floating relief from the release. Staring at him, she willed him to understand.

Worlessly, he opened his arms and offered her a hug.

He understood.

Crawling across the bed, she accepted the offer. Dropping into the warm embrace, she lay with her head on his shoulder and her feet past his. Sighing deeply, she snuggled in closer. Slipping into sleep before she even realised she was yawning. Her body still drained and trying to recover.

= + =

Smoothing her hair back from her face, he watched her sleep. Again. He knew he should have told her. Told her who they were to each other. Swimming in her own sea of pain, she wouldn’t have noticed the drops of his. But hearing her gasping sobs, barely audible through the door, and then seeing her dishevelled and red-eyed, he hadn’t wanted to add to it. Another thing she had to deal with. For now, he would just be there for her and sort it all out later.

It wasn’t long before he followed her into sleep. The feelings coming off her were calmer, the pain from her healing wounds were a low simmer that was barely more than he dealt with regularly from overdoing it on his leg.

In sleep they shifted, slipping to be lying side by side, but still wrapped around each other. When Daniel woke up, he found Daisy tucked under his chin and their legs scissored together. He didn’t think he had ever been this comfortable.

“Daniel?” Daisy’s voice was muffled in the soft cotton of his shirt, but it sounded like she was still mostly asleep.

“I’m here.” He whispered, rubbing a hand gently up and down her spine, trying to lull her back to sleep.

“M’Kay.” She snuggled in closer.

= + =

There was a complete lack of awkwardness when they woke up next. Daisy carefully climbed over him without a problem, but then tumbled over the edge of the bed, having misjudged the size of the bed. Landing on the floor with a thump.

“Ow.” She said tonelessly.

“Are you okay?” Daniel sat up and looked over the side of the bed at where she was sprawled on the floor.

“You need to stop asking that.” She grumbled.

He knew she wasn’t serious though, the hours wrapped around each other had strengthened the flow of feelings he was reading from her. A teasing undertone filled the air.

“I’ll stop when you answer it.” He grinned down at her.

Huffing she threw an arm over her eyes and stayed on the floor.

Carefully inched himself out of bed, he lowered his wooden leg to the ground before standing. Making sure he had his balance before offering her a hand up.

“Come on. Get up and I’ll make you coffee.” He waggled his fingers at her when he caught her glancing out from under her arm.

“And toast?” She bargained, not yet willing to get off the comfortable floor.

“With jam.”

Her delicate hand that hid such incredible strength slid into hers. Their matching calluses from guns and punching bags rasped against each other. Barely any of her weight was behind the hand, a point of stability rather than leverage.

“And peanut butter.” She disappeared out of the room before he could grumble. He hated the stuff while Daisy was happy to eat the stuff straight out of the jar.

On one hand he hated that his leg was too cramped from sleeping in his prosthetic to catch up, but he also couldn’t regret the view. Tight fabrics and cuts of clothing from her time, something called yoga pants she had explained a few days earlier, left little to the imagination and the long hours of training and fieldwork put her in good stead.

By the time he caught up to her, she had dropped into one of the tall bar stools with her head resting on her arms on the cool metal counter. He left her to it. Quietly moving around the small kitchen refilling the coffee maker and setting it to brew while he gathered everything else he needed. Even the horrible nut spread.

Leaving the plate of toast at her elbow, nudging the porcelain into her arm, he reached for the full coffee pot. A quiet thank you mixed with the pure joy of the gooey peanut butter coating her tongue. His own desire kicked him low in the gut sending his balance reeling. Searing heat splashed over his hand.

“Shit.” Shaking his hand free of the coffee, he quickly set the pot down and lunged for the faucet. The room was too quiet behind him. It wasn’t just his hand he had hurt. It was her’s as well. Turning slowly, he half expected Daisy to be long gone, the connection between them too much to take in the aftermath of the last few days. Or years from what he gathered from the little she had said about her past.

She was still there. Eyes wide and unblinking. Staring at him as if she could discern the mysteries of the universe from him, if only she looked at him long enough.

“Daisy?” He hadn’t even started moving, the muscles just starting to bunch in his legs, when she bolted.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a while and is short. I'm not quite sure where I want it to go. If you have any thoughts, throw them at me.

He couldn’t find her anywhere. Her bunk door was still open and the tiny room was deserted. He tried the gym, the cockpit, and the lab next. No where. Standing outside the charging room, he hesitated before hitting the open button, because apparently door handles were a thing of the past.

The soft murmur of voices drifted through the cracked door. Daisy, and the soft deep rumble of Coulson were identifiable, but the words were lost in the space between them. Quietly pulling the door shut, he left them to it. Agent Coulson was Daisy’s father, her constant support and if she felt the need for that he wouldn’t pressure her for a response to her realisation.

It did leave him at a bit of a loose end though.

Uninterested in returning to his abandoned breakfast, he wound his way back through the plane to the gym. Maybe working up a good sweat will take his mind off the morning’s events. Changing quickly, he stretched and set himself up in front of the most ragged looking punching bag of the three strung around the room. He liked its older look, a small reminder of home. The gyms he had frequented during his army days and even later at the SSR had been the same, equipment being in use until it was falling apart and probably even after until it was more duct-tape then equipment.

Falling into the rhythm of punches and dodging the returning swing, he lost himself in it. A dance that could save his life while taking another.

A figure stepped in behind the bag, stabilising it on a backward swing. “Sousa.” May nodded at him, but didn’t say anything else. Letting him continue to release the pent out energy and nerves in a way that was comfortable for him.

It might be more usual for people in Daisy’s time to talk about their feelings, but he wasn’t there yet. Not with anyone other than her. The instant connection and comfort he had felt with her had been explained on the realisation of their deeper bond, but it didn’t extend to the rest of her team. Her family.

Finally exhausted, he stepped back from the gently swinging bag. Gesturing at it as he caught his breath, he silently asked Agent May if she wanted hi to return the favour for her own work out.

“No, thank you.” The tone was curt, but he had learnt she meant what she said and didn’t waste politeness on anyone she didn’t intend it for. “Sit.”

It wasn’t a request.

Shoulder to shoulder, they sat on the bench along one wall, staring relentlessly at the grey, metal walls rather than look at each other.

“Coulson was my soulmate.” She said suddenly.

The only surprising part of that was the choice of tense. As far as he knew, soulmates were a literal till death do us part thing. But then, who had ever heard of soulmates born fifty years and a time travel machine apart? Maybe something had happened before Daniel met them that broke the connection?

“She watched me go through that pain, and was secretly happy it would never happen to hear.”

Give her time, she didn’t say. She’ll come around, she didn’t promise. There was the simple understanding that Daisy may never accept the bond and he would have to learn to be okay with that.


End file.
